How did we get here?

[StormyPotatoes]

I like to hope with the Supreme Court ruling and public opinion changing rapidly we are finally moving into a new period where women’s rights and concerns matter, and biology prevails. But I don’t really understand how we got here to begin with and I really hope some knowledgeable posters can provide some background on this.

I am mid-to-late 30s. Femboi-emo kids were cute when I was a teen. I had a very huge crush on Brian Molko. Most of my male friends (and my now husband) wore eyeliner. Nobody in my year came out as gay whilst at school as the taboo still existed, but interestingly 3 girls in my mixed sex class of 30 came out as lesbians away from school (yes, they are all actual women - not men).

My exposure whilst a teenage to transsexuals was Hayley Cropper, the sympathetic and kind transwoman-played by an actual woman in Coronation Street; and Nadia, the winner of season 5 big brother, who I had forgotten all about in all honesty and was only reminded about due to current BB. It’s now occurred to me that the gender recognition act passed in the same year Nadia won BB.

At that time trans was unusual - I remember cross dressing being a thing and named, as we know, as transvestism. And I also remember, back then, so many of the historic and well documented serial killers had proclivities in cross dressing, which seems to now be downplayed.

So what happened between then and now? Why did very, very few men manage to influence the change in the Equality Act? Where did this sharp increase of trans people suddenly come from (we know it can’t be the GRA because most didn’t apply for it)?

And I think more importantly - why did both governments and media suddenly become so afraid to call a man a man? And worse, seek to punish a woman who dares to call a man a man. The GRA is one thing, but so many of the men who have been actively labelled as women by both politicians and journalists don’t hold a GRA. Where is the political and journalistic integrity they are supposed to uphold?

What happened? Not so much the boom in trans people but why they became a law of their own?

What law change?

So pray-tell answer the question: How do you distinguish men from women socially when you aren't at liberty to do so via biological sex? X ray vision?

I meant the recent law clarification on sex.

Not happening. Where? In Australia? Talk to me in 5-10 years. It will take that long for the ramifications of Giggle v Tickle and other issues to gain the momentum. It takes a long time to get the awareness to the level it is here in the UK.

It is clear though that you don’t have a scooby about the situation in the UK or how it eventuated. Yet you seem to believe you have a depth of knowledge that it is clear you don’t have.

Ohhhh, so its not about any real existing threat to violence then?

Um, you need an actual threat for that to happen first. Of course anything is possible & the trans women population could explode into woman eating godzillas spawning in public loos but on the balance of probabilities of biological variation non normative outcomes increasing to vast proportions is um…unlikely.

That furthers my point.

The Equality Act requires there to be a legitimate aim for natal females to exclude males, and excluding males must be a proportionate means to achieving that aim. If the rationale falls short, males must be included.

The SC ruling clarified, that for the EA to make sense, sex at birth/ natal sex/ biological sex was what the Act refers to when describing the protected characteristic of sex.

Your point was ‘it’s only 0.5%’ and therefore concern reflects moral panic. My point is that if the law were to be changed to create a category that included trsnswomen in what is now female only provision, 100% of females world be effected.

This is basic reasoning that dits outside of any values based reasoning

Just to be clear, publicly accessed single sex spaces will not of course, eliminate domestic violence. Although, it could prevent domestic violence specifically being physically enacted in that space. It could also allow domestic violence survivors a place where they feel safe from male people if their abuser has been or is male.

However, single sex spaces will work to prevent other violent acts, including sexual violence and abuse, and other behaviour from male people being physically present in the space that causes harm to female people in those spaces.

Trying to narrow the harms to violent acts / violent crimes is meaningless because the harms to female people of male people accessing single sex provisions is not limited to violence.

That was in response to Howes

Yes. If the act has clarified that sex matters, then whether it is 0.00001% of the population or 49%, male people are excluded based on sex as a legitimate discrimination.

The illegitimate discrimination in letting in 1, 1000 or 1 million is that if one male is allowed access, all of them have to be allowed access. Otherwise it is an act of illegitimate discrimination.

It is clear that you don’t have a scooby about the situation in the UK or how it eventuated. Yet you seem to believe you have a depth of knowledge that it is clear you don’t have.

"The Equality Act requires there to be a legitimate aim for natal females to exclude males, and excluding males must be a proportionate means to achieving that aim. If the rationale falls short, males must be included.
The SC ruling clarified, that for the EA to make sense, sex at birth/ natal sex/ biological sex was what the Act refers to when describing the protected characteristic of sex."

Sure, but the point was there was already scope in law to offer single spaces where necessary albeit unclear.

"100% of females world be effected."

Um are you seriously suggesting all women come into contact with trans people at all let alone regularly? This is a nothing burger in REALITY.

Oh I do. It's called a 'sustained propaganda campaign'.

Apart from Doctor Who with Rose's 'daughter', have there been any mtf transwomen played by mature men?

It's an old one (1982) but The World According to Garp had John Lithgow as a transwoman

No. You think you do, but you don’t.

I met two trans women when I went to university in 2005. I hadn’t really thought about trans people before that, but they were lovely people and I wanted them to have easier lives.

This. I suggest people who are interested in how the situation in the UK listen to the women who have been commenting on it for years.

Yes, it’s quite telling that some posters think this.

Oh dear. You seem to have succumbed to a moral panic.

At present, where excluding natal males is deemed a proportionate means to achieve a legitimate aim, provision labelled ‘female’ excludes all natal males (which includes transwomen).

Should the law be changed, and it be illegal to exclude all natal males, to allow for the inclusion of transwomen, this would render single sex provision illegal - impacting 100% of females.

In circumstances where it isn’t a legitimate aim to offer single sex provision, and males and females have no need for separate provision, sex and gender identity need not have any bearing (e.g buying bread in a bakery).

So back to my point - your suggestion that the 0.5% prevalence rate means concern reflects moral panic is wrong. The prevalence rate has no bearing on the issue of whether female only provision (for natal females) is permissible in law.

I always find it funny to see people who accuse others of moral panics, conspiracy theories etc then double down on who is spreading propaganda, and who believes theories that simply cannot be applied in the way they insist they can be.

The hypocrisy is very funny.

It is always interesting to watch the machinations unroll.

Firstly attempt to destabilise the sex categories in any way possible to allow male people to be legitimately classed as ‘female’.

Then if that fails, attempt to delegitimise the premise for needing single sex provisions.

Then if that fails, attempt to discredit the groups who are working to support women’s and girl’s needs.

Then if that fails, attempt the wheedling ‘it is only a few’.

Finally, abuse and belittle those who disagree.

Or do all of these at once and in any order.

Rinse and repeat the next day.

Anyone using the term "moral panic" should read this first.
By all means dismiss it as irrelevant if you can't think of an argument against the actual text, of course.

https://thecritic.co.uk/starbucks-dad-solves-the-gender-wars/

Women who, importantly, are pretty much the last people on earth who’d be morally disgusted by someone transgressing patriarchal gender conventions, and whose speech shows no empirically verifiable relationship with the kind of patriarchal violence directed at trans women. That is, accusations of transphobia are being directed against the group of people — women who have theoretical and political objections to the trans rights agenda — who are actually least likely to experience moral disgust over trans people’s gender expression, and this is being done for purely political reasons.

Tell me which behaviour you're talking about, and I will let you know. I still have zero idea what behaviours you mean.

If you mean "online posting" then I have no way of knowing. To even establish such a system would require checking its efficiency against actual sex, which I wouldn't be able to do, to identify false positives and false negatives.

Clearly I'd be guessing, because - and this is the important part - there are no behaviours that are exclusive to one sex or another.

Now if you're interested in trying to communicate the point you're making, please - for the third or fourth time - specify which behaviours you keep obliquely referencing. It really looks like you can't.

In the UK, someone’s sex is important in the context of provision that is segregated by sex. People do not need to know other people’s sex to navigate single sex provision, they only need to know their own and act accordingly. If they are unsure of their sex, they won’t be trans as being trans requires identifying away from one’s natal sex.

In terms of navigating which sex people are in contexts where sex isn’t significant, I’m struggling to think of what this entails? It’s not difficult to interact without making reference to a person’s sex, and I don’t know why anyone would need to know it.